https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Doug!https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgDoug!2014-04-21 19:44:442014-04-21 19:44:44All part of decency's jigsaw I suppose

@Jennifer: Dunno why Republicans hate Fidel Castro so much… just found out today that Cuba has an international fleet of jacked up transit buses because they would “buy” buses from Russia, China, etcet and not finish making payments so support and parts necessary to keep them in working order were cut off.

Guys like that are beyond worthless. How does that guy find fucking work as a writer? He isn’t even interesting. At least gargoyles like Krauthammer have talent (in his case, lying without actually coming right out with outright lies). Lane is George Will without the talent, style or charm.

@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Funny what happens when you even attempt to give everyone health care. People get healthier.
Amazing thing, actually getting positive results by doing the correct thing instead of shouting asinine lies all the time.

He expropriated Cuba’s 0.1%, and that kind of thing can never be forgiven.

There was actually an article in the Boston Globe yesterday about exactly this. Under current law, the Cuban embargo can’t be lifted until Cuba repays the debt for all the American property nationalized after the revolution. Which is currently valued at $7 billion. So, yeah.

Fascinating article: though it buries the real economic stumbling-block (i.e., individual Cubans’/families’ claims) til the end of the piece. $7B? C’mon: even by the standards of a backwater like Cuba, that’s not an insurmountable sum, these days, to have to “resolve” – and that’s even taking the original valuations of 1959 at face value. It’s 2014: surely even in Havana, there have to be some under-employed MBA/PoliSci types who ought to be able to cobble up some sort of deal to “resolve” old American claims for what, on the international scale of finance, is chump change…

A Citibank financed center of western culture that includes three casinos, a new spring training facility for the Marlins, plus an NBA style arena where OKC will play 10 home games a year, and a night club district anchored by a mega-club named ‘The Godfather’ plus the exclusive right to market subprime mortgages to the Cuban populace as the island goes condo when Castro dies. All with Rubin’s informal assurance that the Fed will bail out Citibank when the Cuban ruble gets devalued and loan losses exceed 150 per cent of all loans made.

The $7B loaned to Cuba to pay off the debt will simply get lost in the rounding.

You really shouldn’t talk shit about someone who’s just died unless you’re sure you will have contributed more to the world than that person has. Very few people have room to smack Garcia Marquez. Charles Lane has very few people in smacking range.

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